#41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks
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[00:00:00] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: 

[00:00:29] All right. All right. What's going on? My friends, Mike Walker here with my buddy, Taylor Welch. Of course, this is an episode of TWC talks podcast. Excited to have you guys with us today. We've got a topic that I guarantee is going to resonate with you. And by you, I mean every single one of you, because it's something that we all as humans experience, but especially in the entrepreneurial equation.

[00:00:49] Uh, it's something that we're going to face. We're going to continue to face and we're actually going to put some new paradigms and new looks into it for you to make it seem not so scary for you. So today's topic, Pressure cooker, navigating high stress decision making Taylor. I think it's

[00:01:03] #41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: boy, oh

[00:01:04] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: once or twice, right?

[00:01:05] You've done

[00:01:05] #41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: you know, I have a little bit of experience in the pressure cooker. I actually had a pastor one time when I was growing up. This is a funny story. I've never told anybody this before, but, um, I, uh, so, you know, I always wanted to work at a church. That was like my dream from basically birth. I got that opportunity in Memphis, Tennessee at a pastor who said working for me right now in the, in the first year is like a pressure cooker.

[00:01:31] You've got to sit in that pressure cooker. That was the first time I ever heard like, Oh shoot, what have, uh, what have I done here? Um, and it was indeed, it was a pressure cooker, uh, but the, the effects of that were, were worth it. So

[00:01:49] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: Yeah. And so I would imagine that you look back on that time and you're thankful for that uncomfortable environment. Right.

[00:01:56] #41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: yeah, I think that yes and no. You know, it's like any, anything else that's a slightly traumatic when you look back on it, you are grateful maybe for the lessons, but you wouldn't want to go back and relive them. There's no part of me that wants to, to go back through them. In fact, you know, we're doing this study right now on, um, we're putting this together for arena on finding meaning and purpose.

[00:02:21] And one of the. One of the prominent viewpoints on dealing with trauma is actually being able to extract proper meaning from the situation. This happened to me just recently. There's been a really, really intensely difficult problem that I've been subjected to in one of the businesses and I have not had any control.

[00:02:43] I haven't been able to really do anything about it. I've just kind of been a subject to it, which sounds odd to hear someone. Especially like me say that, but, you know, this is a situation I wasn't able to, to, to do anything about. And, uh, a couple of days ago, I had this aha moment where I realized what it was for and in realizing what it was for, I gave the situation a new meaning.

[00:03:07] And because I was able to give it new meaning, it no longer made me nervous. It wasn't, I wasn't anxious about it or hesitant about it. And I think that's a really interesting lesson that has nothing to do with the pressure cooker, but it has everything to do with how you frame it. When you get past it, everything that happens to an entrepreneur's life, it really is, you have two choices.

[00:03:28] You can either feel that this is happening to you, or you can say, this is teaching me a lesson that I'm going to apply moving forward. And if you can get that second perspective, then you're going to capitalize on your fatigue and capitalize on your mistakes in a way that's advantageous and beneficial moving forward, you know?

[00:03:47] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: Love that. Love that. Yeah. Mentor of mine used to say all the time, and whether it was his thinking or, or he picked it up somewhere, who knows, but he would always say, you know, uh, pressure can bust pipes, but it can also make diamonds. And I was like, okay, yep, I get it. You know, it's like, all right. I mean, that sounds cute, uh, when you're in it, you're like, yeah, okay, cool.

[00:04:06] But I feel like my pipes are busting, but at the end of the day, it's, it's accurate, right? Like if you can withstand the pressure, you, you surely get refined because of it. Um, yeah, for sure. So let's get a little bit tactical here. I mean, um, and the reason why and what spurred this whole topic was I was inside, you know, our online community with, uh, MDC and one of the clients has kind of a crossroads moment coming up.

[00:04:31] I won't say his name. Um, you'll be familiar with him, but he, uh, you know, he's facing as a family man and a business owner, he's coming up to a little bit of a crossroads moment. He's like, do you have a framework for, for making decisions? And what, what kind of Rubik's do you use for, for doing that? And I gave him a few different ideas there.

[00:04:48] And I'm no doubt you'll be able to throw out some knowledge there too, but it made me think, you know, like, okay, well, well, how do we get through this process of, of high pressure decision making? And one of the things that came to mind for me was. The need to have clarity on what we stand for and what we stand against before we're even in the pressure cooker, you know, a lot of people just kind of get, they start analyzing those types of deeper decisions or thoughts when they're in the moment.

[00:05:15] And that's when our thinking processes are already so clouded, you know, so I wanted to get your thoughts on that too is. You know, maybe setting ourselves up knowing we're going to be in the pressure cooker. Eventually, if we're not already in it, we're going to be one day real soon. So what can we do now so that we're more prepared as that comes through?

[00:05:33] You know,

[00:05:34] #41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: Yeah. I love the, I love the idea of being able to predict future regrets and the way that this works and this is, um, this was made popular, I believe, originally, uh, by Viktor Frankl, who stated in one of his books or journals that if you can imagine going through your life, as if this was your second chance, so you get yourself into this mental standpoint of like, I've gone through my life.

[00:06:01] I'm at the end of my life. Yeah. And there are things that I'm not proud of. And there are things that I wish I would have behaved differently and get the opportunity now to have a second chance. You're going back to your life the first time you lived the wrong way, but this time you have an opportunity to relive it the right way.

[00:06:20] Uh, what would you do? And so you put this into perspective and it, and it shows a little bit of even my decision making. Like, I don't know how far back people have listened to our story or how wealthy consultants started or any of our programs, but, you know, I ran a very large consultancy, probably if not the biggest.

[00:06:38] One of the biggest in the online space. And in 2022, I made the decision to walk away from that, not because I exited for millions of dollars, not because it was just advantageous for me to do. But I had a moment when I was sitting down to talk with my, at the time, three year old daughter. And, uh, she's four and a half now and we have an amazing relationship.

[00:07:03] I'm picking her up from school later today. We're going to go get a Chick fil A snack and hang out. But at the time she wouldn't talk to me and she was, she was offended with me. And my wife, Lindsay said, are you offended with dad? And she said, yes. And Lindsay said, why? And she said, he didn't ride bikes with me.

[00:07:18] He took me through the drive through, uh, which we got donuts every Saturday and she did not want to, but I was busy and I didn't have time to go in and I needed to just get her food and, and move on. And it dawned on me, wow, I am, I'm, if I was going through life for the second time, I would make some serious changes here because at a certain point she's going to grow up and she's going to go to school and college and she's going to move on and, and I cannot imagine getting to the end of my life having missed this moment.

[00:07:45] And my, my strategy brain kicked in at this point because I've studied Viktor Frankl and I've studied these, these philosophers and psychologists and people who've really written our playbook. And I said, okay, if, if I don't make a decision to change here, I'm really going to regret it in the future. So the decision making matrix or the decision making construct, if you will, is, can you get yourself into a position where, and to do this.

[00:08:14] People have to not be stressed out of their mind, because, because if you're like trying to make a fight or flight decision and get into the future, it's just your, your evolution will not allow you to do that because if it did, you would get eaten alive. So you have to get to a place where you're safe and you're calm and you can like slow down a little bit, but then you have to really think, you know, if I, if I don't do this, is there a future scenario while, while we regret it?

[00:08:42] And, and then if I do this, is there a future scenario where I'll regret it? And what you'll find when you do this enough times is more than likely, we are actually more regretful of the things we don't do than the things that we do. Most of us have a over opt that we're over indexing on safety and we're over indexing on risk aversion and we're over indexing on sunk cost bias and what will I lose, but we don't quite get to the place.

[00:09:10] Cognitively, where we think about what happens if I don't change something or what happens if I, if I don't do this and my, my experience in life has been that, you know, I can always correct mistakes that I've made just from moving forward, but I can't, I can't correct mistakes from not moving forward because the timing and the way the timing is typically set up.

[00:09:31] It can't go back into the past and undo an inaction. But many times you can correct the bad decision with the new good decision. And so that's, uh, That's like a, like how I think about it. Um, and it's made a massive difference and that's how we connected. And that's how we started the business. And that's how everything downstream people want to look at that.

[00:09:51] I'm S I'm speaking in a, in a week for a group of entrepreneurs. And it's like, the questions are just like, how did you do it? How did you do it? How did you do it? And I understand the question, but. The reality of the situation is like, most of us, we don't know. We just kept making decisions and the decision wouldn't work out.

[00:10:07] And we would make another decision. The people that you've never heard of that you will never hear from. They don't have any books that are, that are moving people. They don't have training. They don't have any notoriety. Those are the people who made one bad decision and then they never made a decision again.

[00:10:21] And so they got stuck in that.

[00:10:24] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: I love that dude. That's so good. It resonates in like highlights. Um, I have this quote that I pulled up this morning in one of my journals, uh, in a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The next best thing is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is

[00:10:39] #41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: So good.

[00:10:40] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: Dita Roosevelt.

[00:10:41] #41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: So

[00:10:42] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: It's so right, right? Like, yeah, exactly, man. I love that. Very good. Um, no, it's solid. So in that sense, then, you know, I think there's a gap between the, our stimulus and response. And you, you said it earlier, you know, the, the importance of slowing down, we can't make these decisions in a state of hurry.

[00:11:02] You know, I use that analogy of, you know, taking someone who doesn't know how to swim. You just throw them in water. What is their first instinct? Just starts thrashing around as if that activity is going to solve the problem. When a more experienced person, you throw them in water, what do they do? Float, stay calm, you know, reduce energy.

[00:11:20] And so, uh, I think as entrepreneurs, we get more and more exposed to the pressure cooker and you live through it. You make it by, you know, you make it through and go, okay, I survived that. And inevitably I find myself over the last 20, you know, plus years, I'm dating myself here in the entrepreneurial space.

[00:11:37] I find that when I'm back in it, I just go, Oh yeah, I've been here before. Stay calm, you know, slow down, speed up the whole thing. You just know that you're going to get through. I don't know the answer. I'm not saying I know how to do it. It's, you know, like you said, people ask, you know, how did you do it?

[00:11:50] How do you do it? I don't know, but I just know I'm going to do it. You know, it's that confidence that comes just through surviving some of these. Environments and, uh, I'm thankful for it, but

[00:12:00] #41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: on that note, something you said that's very profound that I think we should touch on is. What's better than knowing the right answer. And if we want to know what's better than, than the right answer, it's knowing how to get to the right answer. That's higher utility and most applications, because it's, it's one thing when, when members come in or clients come in and they're like, Hey, what should I do here?

[00:12:22] And, and we have a world class faculty. Like you have, like you said, 20 plus years of experience. You've built dozens of businesses. We have, our sales director has built teams of literally 2000 sales reps on a team. We have one of the most fantastic full stack marketers, I think in the worlds who helps our, our clients systemically go in and take over markets.

[00:12:45] But there's what I'm trying to say is there's never going to point going to be a point where someone's like, what should I do here? We're not going to have an opinion. We'll always have an opinion, but what we try to do first is take our frameworks and our models and download those first. Because if you can learn to think the way that we think in a holistic business environment, then.

[00:13:06] Most of the time it's like, you'll just, you won't even need to know what we think about it because you'll have the way that we think about it already. And you'll just start making decisions even from a subconscious level. You know, I would add to the, to the bull moose quote, which is a phenomenal quote.

[00:13:21] Roosevelt, I think one of the biggest problems with the way that we make decisions is actually the extreme. There's there are two extremes. You want to stay away from when making decisions. The 1st is making decisions too quickly, like you said, you want to slow down and you want to actually be able to, like, think things through.

[00:13:41] So I see some people who will rename nameless. Some of them are friends of mine. Some of them are not, but they're making so many snap decisions that they're constantly just correcting and they move forward. They can't like their life doesn't move forward. They get older, but they don't move forward because 2020 was focused on correcting 2019 mistakes and 2021 was focused on correcting 2020 mistakes.

[00:14:07] Then 22 is focused on 20. And now they're at 2023. All they've done the whole year is fix 2022 mistakes. And you can see them just bouncing back and forth. So you want to make a slow down to make sure that there's some, some intellect placed into your decisions. But the second problem is delaying too long.

[00:14:22] And I see people do this all the time. We just talked with the member Mike the other day, and they're just like, so in their head about a decision they have to make. And it's like, you know, it does not matter actually at this point, you've thought through the pros and cons so much that you're kind of at a standstill, like a, you're stuck, make a decision, make it now, jump into it.

[00:14:43] And then we have new data. So what happens when somebody is overthinking, overthinking, overthinking is they just run out of data. They don't have more data to make this, to help them make the decision. They're reprocessing the same old data over and over and over, and they just get stuck. So our advice to this, this member was, you have to just jump into something and it doesn't even matter whether it's right or wrong.

[00:15:05] You need new data. And so ultimately what that did is they were like, Oh, I do know exactly what I need to do. I'm just going to follow this. And then as you go along, you know, these rockets that are, uh, heat sensing and LIDAR, and they've got all this, the, the, the most cutting edge tech ever. They're constantly off, off course because they're just collecting new data.

[00:15:25] And as they collect new data, they bump themselves into the right course. And so humans are the same way. We cannot dry up the flow of data that's coming in. But when you stop moving, you stop collecting data. And that's a big issue.

[00:15:40] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: Ooh, that's huge, man. That's a good visual right there. I love that. Solid, solid. Well, awesome, man. I mean, I know we've got, um, this, we could talk forever on pressure figure scenarios, right? I mean, we could go on and on, but. Um, to, to sum it up, guys, I'll leave you with my thought and then I'm going to kick it over to Taylor here.

[00:16:01] Um, at the end of the day, like I said, as an entrepreneur, you just have to trust that you're going to know and you don't need to know every step of the way. It's like driving in the fog, right? You, as long as you have clarity of the destination, you don't need to see the entire road all the way to the end.

[00:16:14] Every. Turn and corner that you go through. You just need to trust that those next 50 yards or a hundred yards that you can see in front of you, you're going to navigate those as best you can with the data you got, and then once you get to the end of that a hundred yards, guess what you'll find another hundred or so yards in front of you.

[00:16:29] And you're going to navigate that. And you're just going to trust the process and trust your ability to like a heat seeking missile, as Taylor said, uh, just course correct all the way and find your way there. So great visual, man. I appreciate you

[00:16:40] #41 - RAW - taylor_welch-jw1uv0daw__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: Love it. Adios, everyone. See you next week.

[00:16:44] #41 - RAW - mike_walker-yffjaazpn__raw-synced-video-cfr_pressure-cooker-navigating-high-stress-_2023-sep-21-0235pm_twc_talks: See you guys. Peace.

[00:16:45]